This is another of those times I end up blogging about someone I’d never thought I’d be blogging about. This time, it’s the pop star Kesha. (Or is it Ke$ha? If so, how do I pronounce it?) It seems one of her songs is about having had sex with a ghost. No, this is not from The Onion … it’s reported by Discovery News, of all places (WebCite cached article):

Artists and musicians are always seeking inspiration for their work, and in a recent radio interview with Ryan Seacrest, pop star Kesha talked about the inspiration for her new song “Supernatural.” While many singers like Taylor Swift and Adele produce heartfelt songs about love and loss, Kesha’s was a little different.

“There are so many weird topics on this record from having sexy time with a ghost to getting hypnotized and going into past lives. I just really wanted the theme of this record to be the magic of life,” she told Seacrest.

Yes, “having sexy time” means what you think it means: Her song is about the time she had sex with a ghost. “I had a couple of experiences with the supernatural. I don’t know his name! He was a ghost! I’m very open to it. … I was in Africa rehabilitating baby lions. I went diving with great white sharks, and just went on this crazy spirit quest. I got hypnotized, and I just really wanted this record to be really positive, really raw, really vulnerable and about the magic of life.”

The article goes on to explain that this is not unusual, and that’s absolutely true. This kind of story led to — among other things — the medieval legends of the incubus and succubus. Accusations of having “had relations” with the Devil were commonly hurled at the victims of witch trials.

But the supernatural implications of this aside, this happens to be quite explainable by current science. Among the known phenomena which might explain such things, is sleep paralysis (which also happens to explain a lot of other odd tales people tell, such as alien abductions). In such cases, people are having very real experiences … they simply misinterpret what those experiences are.

If — as seems likely — this is what happened with Kesha, then I am certainly not going to say “she made it up” or is crazy or anything like that. No way. I’m more than willing to concede she experienced something she subjectively feels was sex with a ghost. I just don’t think the cause of her experience is what she thinks it was. That’s all.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 1st, 2012 at 7:25 pm and is filed under Fuzzy Thinking, General, Metaphysics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.